


no happy ending

by WonderTwinC



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 19:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderTwinC/pseuds/WonderTwinC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There had never been any guarantee, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no happy ending

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite old but I decided to finish it today because there was a bandying around of angst on tumblr.

She comes in the front door and sets the keys down on the small table Rum moved there just for her use. The house is almost quiet, but if she strains she can hear the quiet tap of his cane overhead in their bedroom, his soft footsteps as he crosses the floor. Belle told Emma she would do this but suddenly she isn’t sure, her heart in her throat as she waits just inside the door.

Rum hasn’t heard her come in; he always calls out if he hears her. It gives her a minute to remind herself of the words, her fingers twisting in an old nervous habit as Belle finally makes her way up the stairs into the first bedroom on the right. He’s hanging up their laundry, walking the same length of floor over and over to put up shirts and dresses alike, his motions sure.

She hesitates again, just inside the room and she clears her throat, eyes darting up to find his face. He stops halfway between the closet and their bed, surprise lighting up his features with a dim smile. “You’re home early,” his expression hesitates, caught between adoration and confusion as she looks away, needing a moment to compose herself. “Belle? Is everything alright?”

He puts the laundry down and she makes herself look up, needing to keep just a bit of distance between them. “I- I spoke to Emma today.” Rum nods slowly and Belle lets out a deep breath, holding his eyes as best she can. “She- she was doing a favor for me, for us, really.”

His expression reads caution as he stands in place, left hand gripping his cane tight while the right flutters in and out of a fist at his side. A nervous tick he’s adopted in this world but it doesn’t fill with her anything but dread. “And what kind of favor would this be, dearie?”

He knows, she knows he knows, Belle can see it in the tense set of his shoulders that he’s already figured her out. Her fingers twist restlessly at the front of her shirt. “I asked her to find Baelfire, for you.”

His eyes are almost blown at her words, the only difference she sees besides the white knuckled grip on his cane. The tap of his cane is unsteady as he takes a step, his voice no more than a breathless, demanding whisper, “Well?”

This is not the brave thing to do, it is the right thing, because her twisted broken heart bleeds in a mess for this man, this monster in the making, and if she has to add another nail to his coffin she will do so with her eyes on his. Belle doesn’t look away, “He’s dead, Rum-“

“No,” his voice is sharp, the single word snapping like a whip through the air. His face is changing so fast, his expression caught between a castle and a hovel and Belle steps toward him, blue eyes piercing amidst her soft expression.

“He’s been dead, almost from the moment he entered this world. An accident on the road-“

“NO!” he roars, his voice catching her, dragging her back to a dining room and a mirror and a kiss before a dungeon.

“Rum-“

“Get out!” Rumpelstiltskin spits the words at her, his tone biting and severe, cracking in anger as he stares at her, through her. Belle left him before, that earlier tragedy a fault of their own making, but she won’t leave him again.

Now is the time for her bravery and her love and she takes a deep breath, carving her expression from the same stone that she was held captive in for so long. “You can’t make me go.”

His cane clatters to the floor, magic ripping the air in two as it sizzles and crackles, taking life with every breath he heaves. Belle barely draws back as his hands clench around her upper arms, his face so very close to hers, caught between imp and man as he snarls, “Who are you to stand there and tell me-“

The grip he has is painful and it will leave bruises, but she doesn’t see that when she looks at him, her hands coming to rest against the roughened skin of his cheeks, cupping his face between her scared palms. “Would you rather hear it from someone else, then?”

Gold glints from between his parted lips as he grimaces, still holding her tight, shaking her gently as he vibrates in anger and pain, gripping her close. “He cannot be... my Bae-“

“… I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t so, Rumpelstiltskin.”

She holds him with her fingers and her words as his world crashes around him, easing them both to the floor as he clutches her with everything he has, pulling her near and keeping her there all in the same breath. Belle holds him in her lap as he bends and breaks and shatters, everything he has done, everything he has sacrificed and built and laid waste to all for a boy who never lived.


End file.
